Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Representative:
On behalf of the National Education Association, whose 3 million members teach and support students in public schools, colleges, and universities across America, we submit these vote recommendations for the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s December 2 markup. We ask that you vote NO on H.R. 151, the Equal Representation Act, and H.R. 5749, the Official Time Reporting Act. Votes on these issues may be included in the NEA Report Card for the 119th Congress.
We oppose H.R. 151, the Equal Representation Act, because:
- The bill is an unlawful effort to undermine the constitutional mandate to count all residents for reapportionment.
- It seeks to fundamentally alter how congressional seats are apportioned by excluding noncitizens from the population totals used for reapportionment in direct conflict with the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which clearly requires that House seats be allocated based on the whole number of persons residing in each state, not just citizens.
- These provisions would suppress census participation, distort population counts, and silence entire communities, denying them federal funding that would help support education, hospitals and health care, law enforcement, transportation, and other public services.
We oppose H.R. 5749, the Official Time Reporting Act, because:
- The bill is an attempt to undermine the representation of federal workers by requiring burdensome and unnecessary data collection on official time and union dues.
- The bill mischaracterizes official time as wasteful and fraudulent, when in fact it is useful in resolving workplace disputes and enhances labor-management relations.
- The requirements in H.R. 5749 would impede longstanding practice, disrupting agency operations with irrelevant and excessive reporting that is aimed at weakening federal sector unions and employee protections.
Please vote NO on H.R. 151 and H.R. 5749. Thank you for considering our comments in your markup of these important bills.
Sincerely,
Kimberly Johnson Trinca
Director of Government Relations
National Education Association
